April 30, 2002 SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Mr. Wally Andersen, MHA for Torngat Mountains,

replaces Roland Butler, MHA for Port de Grave.

The Committee met at 9:00 p.m. in the House of Assembly.

MADAM CHAIR (Ms Jones): Order, please!

We will call the Social Services Committee to order to review the Estimates

for the Department of Education.

I would like to start off by first asking for a motion to adopt the minutes

of the Social Services Committee this morning in which we reviewed estimates for

the Department of Health and Community Services.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

MADAM CHAIR: I would like to start by asking the Committee members to

first introduce themselves by name and district. Then I will ask you, Minister,

to introduce yourself and your officials, then we will go over the procedure for

this evening.

I will start with Ms Hodder.

MS M. HODDER: Mary Hodder, MHA for Burin-Placentia West.

MR. ANDERSEN: Wally Andersen, MHA for Torngat Mountains.

MR. MERCER: Bob Mercer, MHA for Humber East.

MR. MANNING: Fabian Manning, MHA for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. HEDDERSON: Tom Hedderson, MHA for Harbour Main-Whitbourne.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Ross Wiseman, MHA for Trinity North.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay, Minister, when you are ready.

MS FOOTE: Judy Foote, Minister of Education and MHA for Grand Bank.

Maybe my officials could introduce themselves, starting with Gary Hatcher to

my far left.

MR. HATCHER: Gary Hatcher, Senior Director of School Services.

MR. GALWAY: Gerald Galway, ADM of Planning and Educational Programs.

MR. PRESS: Harold Press, Deputy Minister.

MR. YOUNG: Bob Young, Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance and

Administration.

MR. THOMPSON: Jack Thompson, Director of Financial Services.

MS COLES: Linda Coles, Executive Director for Literacy.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you.

My name is Yvonne Jones, and I will be your Chair this evening.

Before we start, I just want to inform all members to make sure you state

your name before you speak so that it can be recorded in Hansard, and please

ensure that your microphones are on because the switching is done in the

basement. They are using cameras to follow because all the members are

identified by seat and we are all in different seats. They need to ensure that

they have the right microphones on.

I will start by asking the Clerk to call the first subhead, please.

CLERK: 1.1.01.

MR. MANNING: On a point of order, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MR. MERCER: Thus far in these Estimates rules of procedure have been

fairly lax, and that has not been unusual. We have usually allowed all members

wide-ranging questions, and that is not a problem in any budget debate. Time

limits have not been adhered to, even though the rules of the committee states

we have twenty minutes back and forth. I feel, Madam Chair, that in this morning's

estimates, in a different department, those rules were abused. We had members

speaking for upwards of two hours. In one case, I believe, a member spoke for an

hour and forty minutes, or at least the questions to and fro were an hour and

forty minutes.

The committee, instead of convening or recessing at 12 o'clock, which was

three hours after the initial debate, we went on to 1:15 p.m. So we were four

hours and fifteen minutes in committee, at which time we held the entire

department and the entire senior management of the Department of Health - I

would not say at ransom but they certainly were not free to leave and to attend

the businesses of the day and the businesses of the evening.

When Question Period in the House began today the first line of questioning

dealt with an issue on which correspondence had been delivered to the minister's

office at 12:30 that day, and the minister, had he not been well briefed on the

issue and well prepared for the questions, would have been caught rather cold. I

am not suggesting that any members were in collusion with any others which would

cause the minister and his department and his officials not to be aware of that

letter, but it is extremely regrettable that the department -

MR. MANNING: On a point of order, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: Well, the member is raising a point of order. You may speak

after he is finished.

MR. MERCER: We have done everything, I think, in committee to allow

people to ask questions and to allow the time frames that are permitted by the

rules to be lax. We have done that many, many times, but I feel this morning,

Madam Chair, we went beyond the rules and the bounds of the rules in our

committee. I would respectively suggest that this committee revert back to

standing rules of twenty minutes per member, back and forth until the questions

have expired. I am not suggesting that we conclude all discussion in three hours

but I would suggest that this evening at 10 o'clock this committee do stand in

recess, if in fact the estimates are not complete at that time.

MADAM CHAIR: Is the member also putting a motion as well as raising a

point of order?

MR. MANNING: No, I have a point of order. I do not think we are here to

discuss Question Period today. We are here to discuss the Estimates on the

Department of Education. We did the Department of Health and Community Services

this morning. Both departments are very large departments of government. Many

issues and concerns that people here have raised - I do not intend to sit here

with my hands tied behind my back tonight, tomorrow morning or any other

morning, neither do my colleagues. So we will proceed. We will follow whatever

rules and regulations that are set down by the House. We will ask questions

until we are finished asking them.

MR. MERCER: Madam Chair, to that point of order.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MR. MERCER: There is no intent, in what I have said here, to in anyway

stymie people's questions. They can ask as many questions as they wish on any

subject within the Department of Education or early this morning in the

Department of Health. I think what happened here this morning went just a wee

bit beyond that. I think, if I have to, we could table evidence of the

appropriate forums to substantiate what I am saying.

MADAM CHAIR: I would like to thank members for the points that they have

raised. We will certainly follow the time limit that has normally been outlined,

from my understanding, for committees. However, it has not been the norm.

Usually members intervene and ask questions at a time that is convenient for

them and for the committee but, no doubt, we will use the twenty minute limit.

With regard to adjourning at 10 o'clock this evening, the purpose of the

Estimates Committee, as all committee members know, is to discuss the estimates

of a particular department to raise questions and to seek information. Until all

members feel they have had an opportunity to do that, we will have to continue

in the committee stage. However, that does not permit any member of the

committee from putting a motion, at any particular time, to adjourn and to

reconvene at another time.

My question to the Member for Humber East is: Are you putting a motion at

this time to adjourn at 10 o'clock or would you wish that we continue and wait

until that particular time?

MR. MERCER: I would not want to presuppose what anyone is going to say in

debate here this evening, but at 10 o'clock I will, for one on this committee,

be vacating this hon. House at 10 o'clock this evening. If that requires a

motion at that time, it will be so moved.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you for that clarification.

Without further ado, we will continue on with the Committee Estimates for the

Department of Education. The Clerk has called the first subhead, 1.1.01. I would

now, at this time, like to invite the minister to make her opening comments and

then we will open the floor for questions and information.

Madam, Minister.

MS FOOTE: Thank you, Madam Chair.

First let me apologize for the persistent coughing but I have a cough that,

as the evening wears on, will probably get worse and it just tends to happen in

the evening. That is why I had hoped my estimates could have been earlier in the

day. However, I will bear with you if you will bear with me.

Given the discussion that just took place and the fact that Health and

Community Services went on for a little over four hours, I think I am going to

do away with the commentary and the niceties and just say we are here to answer

whatever questions you have to put forward. That is why we are here this

evening, and I look forward to a good exchange of information.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Minister.

Who would like to open this evening?

The Vice-Chair, the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank the Member for Humber East for being so courteous in letting me go

first. I would like to thank the minister and her staff for coming this evening.

Hopefully, we can have a thorough discussion on the Department of Education

under the Estimates. I am sure there are many concerns and issues and an

opportunity to have some debate and certainly, an opportunity to ask some

questions.

My first go will look at some of the costs, some budget amounts last year and

revised amounts and some questions that I have on different ones here. We will

just start with that for now.

Madam Chair, for clarity, we have in the past - I am not sure, even though

the Clerk has called one subhead, can we move around in the department under

different subheads or do we take one subhead at a time and go through?

MADAM CHAIR: I will just ask the committee if it is okay to debate all

aspects of the department under the first subhead. Does anybody have any

objections to that?

No objections have been noted, so we will continue with discussions for the

whole of the department under the head that has been called.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Under subhead 1.2.01, Executive Support. Under Transportation and

Communications we had a Budget amount of $65,400 which was Revised to $90,400

and a budget amount this year of $60,300, a difference of about $25,000. I am

just wondering if someone could elaborate on the difference in that, please?

MS FOOTE: I can speak to that, Madam Chair.

One of the things that is there would be a meeting to the Council of

Ministers of Education, Canada. In the past, the CMEC absorbed travel costs for

ministers and for others who would travel with her, and as a result we would

have to not incur as extensive costs in terms of travel. As a result, however,

the CMEC fee structure has changed and now we have to pay for all of the travel.

In fact, the last CMEC meeting was held in Saskatchewan, so the additional cost

is associated with that.

As well, included in that figure is a trip to China. That trip was taken at a

time when we had responsibility for post-secondary as well as K-12. One of the

initiatives that we started to work on when we had responsibility for both areas

in the education system was the establishment of a Canadian school in China. In

fact, I can take that back a little further than that. That started when I was

in the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology at a time when discussions

centered around the whole issue of trying to find a way, I guess, to increase

our enrolment and our post-secondary education, recognizing that we have a

severe declining enrolment in our K-12 system. At the time, I had the discussion

with the then Minister of Education, who is now the Premier, looking at what

other provinces have done, like New Brunswick and the other Atlantic Provinces,

and Ontario, where they have, in fact, established Canadian schools in other

parts of the world, particularly in China, and finding that it was much to their

benefit to have that kind of arrangement.

We have been working hard to try and put that in place, and I am pleased to

say that we have reached an agreement with private interests in China and the

outcome, I would like to think, will be the establishment of a Canadian school

that will, in fact, use the K-12 curriculum from Newfoundland and Labrador. In

doing that, there are a couple of interests there - and this is where I go back

to my industry, trade hat - where it was seen to be an opportunity as well to

look at opportunities, not only for increased tourism for this Province from

that part of the world but other business opportunities as well. We are finding

that other provinces are finding it to be very beneficial.

We are at the point now where we, in fact, are prepared to licence a school,

a Canadian school, in China. The curriculum would be K-12, so they would be

well-informed about Newfoundland and Labrador. In fact, I would like to think

that during their schooling they would also be exposed to the Province through

any advertising, tourism advertising, that we might want to undertake. All of

the costs associated with this school will be borne by the people in China.

There will be no cost to the Province whatsoever. All of the inspections to

ensure that they are adhering to our curriculum will be borne by them. They

would also like to see, I think it is, probably 25 per cent of the teachers

would be from Newfoundland and Labrador. They would like to have a principal

from Newfoundland and Labrador to be responsible for the curriculum aspects of

the school, but they would also like to have a co-principal who would be looking

at and responsible for running the school; because, of course, this school would

also have a residence associated with it.

I have to say that my experience has been that the parents in China have a

lot of money that they are quite prepared to spend on educating their children

in a Canadian or an American system, and we can benefit from that. This whole

initiative, that is where the additional cost came from. It was a result of that

trip.

MR. MANNING: It sounds good, Minister. Would this be 100 per cent

Canadian curriculum?

MS FOOTE: Absolutely.

MR. MANNING: That is interesting.

MS FOOTE: Newfoundland curriculum.

MR. MANNING: Newfoundland curriculum.

MS FOOTE: Yes.

Of course, our hope would then be that it would be a natural evolution that,

when they graduated from Grade 12, they would come for post-secondary in

Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. MANNING: Subhead 1.2.02., Administrative Support, under Purchased

Services, there is a budgeted amount of $286,100, we see an increase up to

$801,100, and an estimate this year of $263,300, a considerable amount of

increase. Exactly why? What were those purchased services?

MS FOOTE: Our insurance deductible was $200,000. $100,000 of the $801,000

is for things like any advertising we might do for the Department of Education.

Then we had incurred extra postage, another $90,000, as a result of our testing.

Of course, when you are doing that kind of testing for the curriculum, it cannot

be done through the regular mail system so you have to incur express postage

costs or delivery costs from some of the services around. We also spent $125,000

in putting some new carpet down in the department. I have to say, it was the

first time since the building has been there that the carpet was replaced so

that was long overdue.

MR. MANNING: Is there anybody, Minister, on contract with your department

for consulting purposes?

MS FOOTE: The only contractual services that we would have would be, that

we would contract teachers in the system, or retired teachers, to do some course

development for us. We have a gentleman by the name of Robert Rose, to whom we

gave $5,000, who did distance teaching services for us for Charlottetown,

Labrador. I think that was math. We had difficulty getting a math teacher to go

in there so we did it by distance, and, I have to tell you, it was a really

successful undertaking.

Another man, Don Squib, a $15,000 contract for course development for the

Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation; David Power, $5,000 for the same,

course development for CDLI; Ed Somerton, $5,000 for the same thing; Harry O'Rielly,

$4,000 for the same thing; Mark Jones, $3,000 for Intermediate Physical

Education Curriculum Guide; Kellie Baker, $3,000 for Intermediate Physical

Education Curriculum Guide; AEM Human Resource, $8,500, and that was a review of

general administration and a review of position descriptions. Total

Communication, $4,930, that was for the Literacy Foundation logo. We have

established a Literacy Foundation that we can speak to after, if you wish. Kevin

Major was contracted for $1,500 to review the Religious Education curriculum for

Grades 4-6; Patricia Cowan, $1,250. Patricia chairs the Teachers'

Certification Review Board, so that would be her per diems. Education Concepts,

$43,716.83 for exam guides and handbook development, and that is for a total of

$99,896.83.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Minister.

Under Administrative Support, 1.2.02., Grants and Subsidies, there was $5,000

budgeted last year and that was what was expended. This year it climbs by

$50,000. What falls under that, that it would have an increase of $50,000?

MS FOOTE: I am sorry, what was the -

MR. MANNING: Subhead 1.2.02. Administrative Support, 10., Grants and

Subsidies. It has gone from $5,000 to $55,000.

MS FOOTE: Oh, I see, yes.

That is additional funding there that we are looking to support national and

international education initiatives, like the national math competition for

instance.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MS FOOTE: We had a fund in there for youth initiatives and, when the

department split, all the funding that was under that heading went with Youth

Services and Post-Secondary Education.

MR. MANNING: Okay, so we have an increase of $50,000 - I am not following

- because you want to partake in more national testing?

MS FOOTE: Yes, to support students who are going off to national and

international competitions.

MR. MANNING: Okay, so that is the difference there?

MS FOOTE: Yes. Right now, of course, there is nothing there, where it was

all moved into Youth Service and Post-Secondary Education.

MR. MANNING: I wasn't aware that if somebody is travelling to some

other province in Canada to partake in a competition, they can apply for a grant

from the department.

MS FOOTE: They can now, but normally it is done.... For instance, if you

have a teacher taking a group - or the university, for instance, would be

looking to do something like that in the way of national math competitions,

organized by the university but taking high school students.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

Under Corporate Planning and Research, 1.2.04., Salaries, it was budgeted

last year at $290,000, the revised was $266,000, and this year it is $241,000.

Are there less people involved in policy formulation, research, or - this year

it is $50,000. Has somebody moved?

MS FOOTE: The fact that we did not spend as much was delayed recruitment,

essentially, and the fact that it is less money now is because we had to take -

was it 5 per cent? - on salaries as part of the overall savings throughout

government, so we had to take a 5 per cent hit on salaries and an 8 per cent hit

on operating. That is why you see a reduction there, down to $241,900.

MR. MANNING: Purchased Services, under Corporate Planning, budgeted

$25,600, spent $5,600, $20,000 less, and this year budgeted - what would those

purchased services be, under Corporate Planning and Research?

MS FOOTE: That would be the type of publications that you see here, and

the reason it is down is that we had a delay in generating publications so it

resulted in less printing, but that is one of the types of publications that we

put out over in the department.

MR. MANNING: So these are reports and some studies that have been

completed?

MS FOOTE: Yes, these are statistics here on the elementary-secondary

system and it would contain results from the different curriculum, enrollment by

subject and grade, K-6.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

In Teaching Services, 2.1.01., I realize what the amount is for, grants and

subsidies to school boards. We budgeted $308 million last year but we see an

increase of around $6 million. I realize this year, I guess, it is because of a

reduction in the amount of teaching units that are there, but the increase last

year of $6 million, would that be a fixed amount of teachers that we had in the

beginning? How would you -

MS FOOTE: That was an extra pay period for our teachers. There were

twenty-six pay periods, revised to twenty-seven pay periods. Then if you look at

2002-2003, that provides for twenty-five pay periods.

MR. MANNING: School Board Operations last year, 2.1.02, we had $600,000

for Purchased Services. Again, that is the insurances and allowances to

students. This year we have approximately a $250,000 increase. Is that insurance

costs?

MS FOOTE: Yes, that is an increase in school insurance premiums; a 25 per

cent increase.

MR. MANNING: That is right across the board for the whole - that is

incredible.

MS FOOTE: Yes.

MR. MANNING: Under 2.1.04., Community Access Program - I realize that you

have started up a few of those over the past year. I know of a couple in my own

district. We had a Budget of $135,800, Revised at $280,800, and this year

$475,300. I would just like for you to elaborate on the Community Access

Program, and not only on the figures, but exactly what the plans are for that

because there is a fair increase for this year.

MS FOOTE: Well, the CAP agreement with the federal government expired

actually in March of this year and we were provided with interim funding of

$605,000, which was received late in 2001-2002 to enable us to continue on until

the end of May. We are now working with the feds to try and put another

agreement in place, and it is looking very positive. Nothing has been confirmed

at this point in time, but we are hopeful. Certainly, they have expressed an

interest in continuing on with that agreement. Right now we have 183 sites

throughout the Province in 585 communities, and we are hoping that we can

increase on those numbers. We are hopeful that we are going to get a renewal of

that agreement or a new agreement.

MR. MANNING: I know in my own district, I think there are four now,

possibly five, community access sites. It is a tremendous opportunity for -

MS FOOTE: It has been very beneficial too, in those areas where the CAP

sites are actually in the libraries, because it has enabled us to increase the

number of hours that the libraries are open. So it has been helpful on that end.

Where we do not have more resources available to increase the hours of the

libraries themselves, this has made it possible to the CAP agreement.

MR. MANNING: I think I know from my own experience, it is bringing more

people into the library, not only to use the access - I know my own two children

are doing the same thing.

MS FOOTE: That is a real plus from my perspective.

MR. MANNING: Under Grants and Subsidies, we basically see the same

outline, $1.6 million up to $2.1 million. Would that fall inline with - would

the Grants and Subsidies be the same thing in relation to the fact that - under

number 10, I am sorry.

MS FOOTE: What was that? Sorry.

MR. MANNING: Grants and Subsidies, under the Community Access Program, we

went from $1.7 million approximately to $2.15 million, an increase there. Would

that fall under the same -

MR. PRESS: Minister, if I may?

MR. MANNING: Your light has to be on there.

MR. PRESS: (Inaudible) and wait for the light to go on?

MR. MANNING: Yes, the light should come on.

MR. PRESS: Okay, thank you.

Under Grants and Subsidies, basically, it is about 200 sites projected at

about $7,000 per site. The point that the minister spoke to - just bring you

down to 01. on Revenue - Federal. If you noticed, between Budget and Revised

there is about a $600,000 difference. That is $600,000 that was put in on the

revenue side to carry us over for a couple of months, a month or so, until we

can negotiate a new agreement.

MR. MANNING: Okay, so that is $600,000 from the federal government?

MR. PRESS: That is the $600,000 she talked about.

MR. MANNING: On 2.1.06., School Supplies; a Budget last year of $6

million - I am going to round these off instead of going into all of them - and

$6 million this year or $6.4 million. Again, there is a $400,000 increase. Is

that an increase in costs or are we getting - are there more supplies or is it

just an increase in costs?

MS FOOTE: We have a base budget there of $4.5 million for School

Supplies. That includes $1.9 million as recommended in the Sparkes-Williams

report.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MS FOOTE: We should be increasing that by a certain amount and that was

the $1.9 million.

MR. MANNING: On that line: Amount to be Voted, Revenue - Provincial,

$700,000. Where does that fall into the amount under supplies?

MR. PRESS: The $700,000, that is just the projected revenue. That is from

the sale of books in the high school level. It is hard to say from one year to

the next year how much replacement you actually have. That is simply just a

round figure on the sale of books.

MR. MANNING: Okay, that is just a possibility (inaudible).

MR. PRESS: Can I go back just a minute to link 04 and 05?

MR. MANNING: Okay, yes.

MR. PRESS: If you noticed, and I thought you might have asked about the

$816,000, that does not appear in the current year. That was part of a contract

for religious education Grades 4-6.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MR. PRESS: That is almost to conclusion. There is another couple of

hundred thousand dollars left in that, and that rolled into the $6 million. That

is why you see the $6 million go up to $6.4 million. Where now the completion of

religious education, and fully implemented, is included under 04. in Supplies,

because most of that would be textbook based.

MADAM CHAIR: The Member for Placentia & St. Mary's, your time is

up. We will move on to another committee member. If you have further questions I

am sure we will get back to it.

MR. MANNING: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Manning.

I will now call on the Member for Humber East.

MR. MERCER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a couple of general questions. First of all, dealing with declining

enrollment. How would you address that or how is that issue being addressed in

this year's budget? What particular initiatives are in there or actions in

your budget that you have taken in response to declining enrollment?

MS FOOTE: Actually, even though we have a declining student enrollment,

we really have not done anything to impact negatively on the educational system.

In fact, what we have done is - even in the teacher allocations, in removing 208

units - chose not to follow the formula that was put in place in the Williams-Sparkes

report which would have seen us, as you know, removing 426 units.

Even when you look at the revenue for the school boards, we have chosen not

to decrease their operating grants, but, in fact, we have increased them year

over year. I think in the last five years we have seen an increase in their

operating grants of 14.5 per cent. Even though we have a declining student

enrollment there is a recognition that costs have been increasing as well, so we

have to be responsible in that vein.

As well, with our teacher allocations, the allocations for next year are

based on this year's enrollment and we will have 3,000 fewer students in the

system come next September.

Even though we have declining student enrollment, we have tried to be

cognizant of the fact that there are still going to be increased costs in the

system to which we have to respond. I guess one of the ways, in terms of dealing

with the declining student enrollment and trying to be as effective and

efficient as we can, is working with all of our school boards to look at the

number of buildings they have out there and how they can do some consolidation

and be able to offer the quality programming that needs to be offered.

We have also recognized, with the formula that was put in place by Williams-Sparkes,

they took into account rural Newfoundland and Labrador and isolated schools in

terms of the formula. So even if you look at the number of students and the

decline that we are seeing, they factored all of that into the formula and then

added on additional resources for rural Newfoundland, especially in isolated

areas.

MR. MERCER: So, when you say that the Williams-Sparkes report would have

taken out 426 in last year, or is that -

MS FOOTE: Total, it would have been 218 last year and 208 this year.

MR. MERCER: Yes, okay.

MS FOOTE: So, it would have been a total of 426, but we left in the 218

last year and we chose to leave them in again this year.

MR. MERCER: One of the problems that has always concerned me about

teacher reductions is that they have always been done on the basis of declining

enrollment. If you lose one student out of each class in each of the various

schools you will end up with a large number of students having left. It is

difficult to look at a class of twenty-six, and you only have twenty-five and

notice that the one is missing, but yet we take the teachers out based upon

numbers. How does your department factor that in, because at some point in time

you are taking people out but they still live in the communities and going to

the schools where they normally go?

MS FOOTE: I will speak to that to say that is why we did not take out the

numbers we were advised to take out under the formula, in recognition that we

want to be able to deliver the quality programs and want to ensure that we can

offer the core curriculum, no matter where you live in the Province. In fact, if

you look at the teacher decline compared to the student decline, we have a

teacher decline of 3.5 per cent versus a student decline of 7.6 per cent over a

two-year period. So that has all been taken into account. We have not, as a

government and as a department, said we have to follow the formula because there

is a recognition of that very fact that you raise, but of course it works both

ways.

MR. MERCER: It seems to me that the formula works rather well when you

have an increasing enrollment. It does not work quite so well when you have

declining enrollment. There will come a floor where, even though we did lose a

number of students, you really cannot take anymore teachers out of the system.

MS FOOTE: If you look, for instance - and I have the breakdown here for

all of the boards. The Labrador school board, for instance, losing 197 students

and losing five teachers over the system. You can go down through all of them

and get the numbers. So, you get a teacher decline of 1.3 but you get a student

decline of 3.7. We are looking at that and cognizant of the fact that we have to

deliver a certain core curriculum. That is what we keep in mind, irregardless of

what the formula says.

MR. MERCER: And I can see how your small Necessarily Existent schools

work and why you need that. That works very well for some of the smaller

communities because regardless of whether you have twenty, thirty or forty

children going to school, you still need one or two or three teachers to deliver

that program. But, when you get into the more urban areas, Corner Brook, St.

John's, Grand Falls and Gander, I am still having in my mind, Minister, how

and when - obviously, we do not wait for every school to become small and

Necessarily Existent to say: No more cuts. There has to be some point where

Williams-Sparkes - they must have recommended something to say that the formula

no longer works once you get to a certain point.

MS FOOTE: Well, the formula is very clearly spelled out in the Williams-Sparkes

report. The ratio of students to teachers - if you look at grade level in small

schools and small schools with an average grade enrollment of less than thirty.

In Kindergarten you would have a ratio of 16:1; Grades 1-6 a ratio 20:1; Grades

7-12 a ratio of 21:1.

Then they have it broken down for multi-levels instructional groups. They say

here, "Teachers will be allocated for high school based on the framework

for small, mid-sized and large schools with a minimum number of teachers

assigned as follows: In small schools 1.5 teacher units will be allocated to

each school with 21 or fewer high school students. Schools with 22 to 31 and 32

to 42 high school students (inclusive) will be allocated 1.75 and 2 teachers

units, respectively."

MR. MERCER: (Inaudible).

MS FOOTE: This is out of the Ministerial Panel, Recommendation 56. This

is the Williams-Sparkes report.

"High schools with enrolments greater than 42 will be allocated teachers

based on a divisor of 21 for small school, 24 for medium schools and 27 for

large schools."

Then it goes on. They have broken it down according to grade and multi-level

instructional groups and numbers of students in a grade. So a lot of work went

into it. I would like to think that at some point in time we are going to see an

increase in student enrollment, but the projections for the next, I would say

five years, is in fact that we are going to be seeing a further decline. Based

on the formula they have here, they felt confident that we would be able to

deliver the curriculum that we have to deliver, especially in high school, to

ensure that our students get the thirty-six credits which are required for high

school graduation.

For instance, if you want to look at - the formula does indeed, as you

mentioned, work for small schools. In Norman Bay, Labrador, there are ten

students and two teachers.

MR. MERCER: That is the point I was making. Unless you want to get back

to the one-room, one type of class, one-teacher school, there comes a point

where, regardless of the number of students you have, you need one or more

teachers to teach those students. Those ratios, while they work at a certain

level, and once you go below a certain floor, they really do not make a lot of

sense.

MS FOOTE: I think we also have to bear in mind that we are working now

with the Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation. We are certainly looking

to that centre. I think we have now developed ten courses that can be offered at

distance by the centre. In fact, I am very pleased to report that my colleagues

in the other three Atlantic Provinces have looked to the centre as a model to be

used throughout the Atlantic Provinces where we will, in fact, develop the

courses and they will buy the courses from us. It is becoming a way of

delivering courses, and not just in rural parts of the Province. We are hoping

that, even in places like Corner Brook and St. John's, they will avail of

advance courses that can be offered via distance, where we will have E-teachers.

We are looking to the Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation to help us in

respect of ensuring that we can deliver programs anywhere in Newfoundland and

Labrador.

If I can mention, when I mentioned the rural adjustment for rural schools,

the teacher multiplier for grade level specific ratios shall be set at 1.05, so

it is taking into account the needs of rural Newfoundland.

MR. MERCER: Two further questions on teachers, and teacher-student

ratios. We frequently hear in this Province, and from your department perhaps,

that we have one of the best student-teacher ratios.

MS FOOTE: In the country.

MR. MERCER: There are those who will say: Yes, but you do not do it the

same way as B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, et cetera. Do you, in fact,

do your calculations on the same basis as any and every other province?

MS FOOTE: Absolutely. We compare apples with apples. So, if you look at -

MR. MERCER: So when we say that the student-teacher ratio in Newfoundland

is, and we say

whereas in Ontario it is, we are comparing and that is a real,

honest-to-goodness type of number. We are not fudging it, we are not trying to

(inaudible).

MS FOOTE: Absolutely. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the ratio is 13.4

students to one teacher; the Canadian average is 16 students to one teacher. In

Ontario, I think, the average is 16 students to one teacher.

MR. MERCER: You hear that all the time and people come up to you and say:

Oh, yes, but they are including - I will take, for argument sake - librarians,

special education, or guidance councillors.

MS FOOTE: That is true.

MR. MERCER: My answer is: Well, if we do then everyone else does also.

MS FOOTE: That is right, yes. We do and they do.

MR. MERCER: The other point on the declining enrollments and the leaving

of the teachers in the system, say, last year when we left, I guess, 208 in the

system -

MS FOOTE: Two hundred and eighteen last year.

MR. MERCER: Two hundred and eighteen last year.

MS FOOTE: Eleven million dollars.

MR. MERCER: At least in my area, and I cannot speak for all school

boards, a number of those teachers came to the school board office and they did

things which were appropriate at the school board level. Now, in theory, they

are still surplus teachers, quote, within the system, even though they are

delivering from the school board office a number of what they would consider to

be critical -

MS FOOTE: Some of the boards will utilize teaching units within the

board, yes.

MR. MERCER: One of the problems that happened before, as I understand it,

is that school boards developed a substantial staff at the board office and then

at some point in time a government - whether it was this one or another one, I

am not sure, it does not make any difference - cut the numbers and all of a

sudden the programs that were being offered at the board office had to be

reduced.

One of the problems I see with the formula is that while we leave these

numbers in, some government, whether it be this one or another one in the

future, might say, based upon the formula, we have too many teachers in the

system and they make the cut for whatever the reasons are of that day. The

school boards are now left where they were a number of years ago, scravelling.

Do we do anything in our thinking to keep those numbers in the system, now that

we have once done it?

MS FOOTE: You mean instead of having them utilized in the board office?

MR. MERCER: Well, sometimes in the board office is a good place to have

them because there are things that need to be done at the board level to ensure

a smooth running of the school district. My point is: If we had determined right

now that we left 218 in the system, and let's say the school boards across the

Province has taken a number of those and moved them into a board office - which

a number of them have done, I know in my area they have - the danger I see with

the way that things are right now is that a government, whether it is, as I say,

this one or another one re-elected after next year, might decide to say: Well,

let's go back to the Williams-Sparkes report; we have more teachers than

enough.

I don't know if you understand what I am trying to get at.

MS FOOTE: Yes, I know -

MR. MERCER: If we build up an expertise at the board office, then it is

like, ol, and you pull the carpet out from underneath them and now, where do

we go from here?

MS FOOTE: Well, I think all I can say to you is that I am not quite sure

what will happen next year or the year after. A lot of it depends on what we can

afford as a government.

MR. MERCER: Yes.

MS FOOTE: Clearly, I, as the Minister of Education, will have to make the

case, as the Minister of Health has to make the case, around the Cabinet table

for whatever I feel I need in the system. Whether or not I am successful depends

on what resources are available to us. Without telling you discussions that

happen around the Cabinet table, all I can tell you is that I will do my job in

terms of making the case for what I feel, as the Minister of Education, is

needed in the system, based on the information that I have at my fingertips.

Whether or not we are able to get a positive response to that will depend on the

overall budget that government has to work with.

MR. MERCER: I guess where I am coming from, Minister, on this one, is

that while the Sparkes-Williams report has done a fine job in determining the

number of teachers we need in respect of the different schools and so on and so

forth in declining of enrolment, do we have or is there a similar policy within

the department to say that, these are the services that must be delivered and

could be delivered or should be delivered by the board office, and here is an

appropriate staffing level.

MS FOOTE: You will find in the Avalon East School Board that, in fact,

they will have more personnel available because of the larger student body and

the number of schools which they have to administer, but we do allocate to board

office personnel and we do encourage boards to use teaching units for teaching

activities. That is part of the ongoing discussion with our boards, and we sit

down with them when it comes time to allocate teachers and discuss with them

what their needs are and how best we can meet those needs.

It was clear, when we had the discussion with the boards this time around,

that if we were to, in fact, use the formula, that there would have been

considerable hardship so we chose not to and the Cabinet saw fit to support me

in that decision.

MR. MERCER: I guess the only point I am trying to make on that is that

the boards, rightly or wrongly, feel they have a mandate, obviously, to deliver,

and they feel they need a certain core amount of staff to do that, and sometimes

they have to rob Peter to pay Paul to be able to do that, to take teachers out

of the classroom into a board office to do something which they feel is

necessary for (inaudible).

MS FOOTE: It varies from board to board. One board may feel they want to

do this or need to do this. Another board may not feel, and the best we can do

is allocate the resources available to us and encourage the board to use the

units that are there for the schools to use them in the schools.

I know that an

article that was carried today in The Telegram quoted

Brian Shortall, the Education Director for the Avalon East School Board, as

saying that they will lose 1.5 units, I think, from the district office. Well,

in some cases you will find that some boards have been utilizing a fair number

of units in the board office for very good programming, and especially last year

when we did not take any teachers out of the system. I think, if you talk to any

of the Education Directors out there, and any of the board chairs, they would

tell you that it was wonderful and that, in fact, they were able to do things

they probably would not have been able to do prior to do that and maybe you

cannot do this year. But I think we all have to be realistic and say, while it

is nice to do, we have to offer quality education, we have to offer a core

curriculum, and anything above and beyond that, if we can afford to do it, then

we should do it, but there are other demands.

MR. MERCER: Thank you very much. I have a number of others, but -

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. member's time has expired at present so we will

come back to you.

Thank you, Mr. Mercer.

I would now like to call on the Member for Trinity North.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

MS FOOTE: May I ask, Madam Chair: Do we now go back to the Minister's

Office again, the heading under that and everything?

MADAM CHAIR: When we called the first subhead, Minister, anything

pertaining to your department is now open for discussion, at the discretion of

the Committee members, in terms of what they want to ask.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

MS FOOTE: I am not objecting, Madam Chair. I am just wanting to know

where I am in terms of responding.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: We will try not to duplicate the questions, or confuse

you by jumping all over the book.

Just a couple of things, but first for clarification, today we were

distributed a copy of Bill 8 in the House, and included in that was $10 million

for Education. Is that the $10 million in total that the department has

overspent, or the difference between the budget and the revised figure in this

document, or is this $10 million a separate figure?

MS FOOTE: Is that the EIC?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The introduction, the cover sheet on this bill, says:

An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain

Additional Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March

31, 2002 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service. On the back

schedule there is $10,420,000 for Education. Can the minister tell us what this

figure is?

MS FOOTE: A different Bill 8.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: What was that?

MS FOOTE: He was thinking of a different Bill 8.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Oh.

MS FOOTE: You don't remember the other Bill 8?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: This is fresh off the press today; pardon the pun,

Harold.

MS FOOTE: That is to cover off the extra pay period.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The extra pay period?

MS FOOTE: Yes.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: So that figure, $10 million, that is here, we won't

see individual figures accumulating to this $10 million in this document as we

talk about it?

MS FOOTE: No, that is -

MR. PRESS: If I could, what we see under Teaching Services, that we

talked about earlier, the difference between the two pay periods was about $6

million or $7 million. There were also sayings that we accumulated last year

through some slippage and so on that we put towards that, because one pay period

has a cost, Bob, I presume, around $13 million or $14 million per pay period.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I don't know if I am asking the question correctly or

not. What I am trying to establish is: When we go through these Estimates here

and we see last year's budget figure and we see the revised, sometimes we will

see some overage, sometimes we will see some surpluses. When I look at the net

figure in this document here, is this $10 million in addition to what I am

seeing in the Estimates document?

MR. PRESS: I presume they will not be cumulative, they will not add.

MS FOOTE: Bob can give the breakdown.

MR. YOUNG: The $10 million figure, of that, approximately $7 million is

shown in the Estimates as part of a - this is a special warrant, and that is to

cover the additional pay period. Then, the other $3 million are things that are

flesh throughout the department. I guess some of the money is for the EIC, the

Investment Corporation, and I think that would chew up the bulk of what is left,

rather than get into minor details. Those two particular items account for the

$10.4 million.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The $3 million, you just mentioned that EIC -

MR. YOUNG: That is the Education Investment Corporation.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Exactly, which, in this Estimates document, is found on

page 176. If you look at 2.1.08. in this document here, the Estimates document

on page 176, what you are telling me - at least if I am hearing you correctly -

is that the budget last year was $1,555,000, the revised was $5,350,000, and

because you overspent in this category you have now brought that figure forward

in this warrant here.

MR. YOUNG: Under special warrant, that is correct.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The math will not add up. There is an in-service in

budgeting here now. The math will not add up because, if I take the $4 million

there, you said there was $3 million -

MR. YOUNG: Sorry, there is $4 million there and the other difference is

in the teachers' payroll side. So, you go from the 308 up to the 314.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: So, if I see 308 to 314 -

MR. YOUNG: That is correct.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: If you look at the difference in those two figures

there and the difference in the $5,350,000 and and $1,550,000, it adds up to

$10,420,000.

MR. YOUNG: That should be about it.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay, I just wanted to clarify it.

MS FOOTE: (Inaudible) balance of our commitment of the $12 billion over

three years.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I just wanted that for clarification more than anything

else. Thank you very much.

Minister, I will just focus on two components for this series of questions,

if I could. I want to talk out the school board operations. The other one I

would like to talk a little bit about is the Centre for Distance Education and

Learning. We will just focus on those two pages. How is that?

MS FOOTE: Okay.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: You mentioned earlier about school boards; you have

reinvested significant amounts of money in school boards and rather than get

into a whole discussion around the whole process of funding school boards, I

would like to be able to pick out a couple of things that come up quite

frequently in discussions around the financing of school boards. One of them

deals with the issue of - because I understand the framework for budgeting

school boards is pretty structured, in that there are some items that are a very

direct reimbursement for expenses, like the cost of heating buildings and things

like that. Then there are some other costs where there is a per pupil

allocation, so it is a fairly structured process, but within that structured

budget process, to my knowledge, there is no direct line item or consideration

for technology: the acquisition of computers, the maintenance of computers, the

replacement of computers, that side of it which is a rapidly expanding area, and

as you move more into the technology - we will talk in a moment about the centre

- the utilization of computer technology in schools, the expanse of that has

been so rapid in recent years. Then, of course, once you have the stuff in place

there is the maintenance of it and then there is the ongoing upgrades. So, once

you go down that road you are committed to the long-term and continued

investment. It is never an issue of becoming complete, flush, or you are now

finished.

Has the minister given some consideration as to how you might reconfigure the

funding of boards to include a commitment for that area of board operations?

MS FOOTE: I guess, up to this point, it has all been included under the

operating grant for the board.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Yes.

MS FOOTE: The fact that we have not allocated funding to the boards,

based on your declining student enrollment and fewer buildings and allow them to

keep their savings to be used for incentives, is a recognition that they do need

more money in the system. That is why we have left that in and we have not seen

a decrease in funding going to the boards.

We have not, at this point, to the best of my knowledge anyway, looked at

coming in with a line item that will cover off additional costs that could be

attributed to the cost of implementing a new technology. I guess what we have

allowed the boards to do is to manage that pot of money as they see fit. I am

not interested in micro-managing in the sense of saying: You use this amount for

this and this amount for that. We have just given them an overall grant, and

they have been able to move money around in that grant. We have not, in fact,

been specific in terms of: This is money that is being allocated for technology

as an area, as an item of budget.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I guess, given the structure of the board's financing

now, if you look at aspects of boards' funding, if you look at the utilities,

janitorial maintenance, secretarial, administration, repairs and maintenance,

instruction and special incentives, as I understand, there are seven categories.

Given how some of these are fixed and there is no flexibility for boards to -

you cannot take money out of school utilities, for example, and hire a computer

support technician or janitorial maintenance. Well, the maintenance one you can,

I guess. Secretarial is pretty defined, based on student enrollment as I

understand it. Administration is an in and out issue. So, you have instruction

material and repairs and maintenance, the only two areas where you can actually

take money out and put it into computers, the purchase of computers or

replenishing of what you have or the maintenance of those systems. There is,

within the framework of a budget, only two real categories where you have

flexibility there of directed funds.

MS FOOTE: I am not sure if you are aware of this, but we are, in fact,

reviewing now the allocation to boards for secretarial and maintenance.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay.

MS FOOTE: We have Dr. Phil Warren who is spearheading that initiative for

us. That, of course, came out of the collective agreement that we reached.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: That's right, yes.

MS FOOTE: So that area is being looked at to try and see if, in fact,

they are being underfunded, I guess, and see if we can come to some kind of

consensus about how best to go forward. I know it is an issue for us, certainly

in terms of technology because we are moving in that direction, as you already

stated, and certainly with the Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation. It

is something that is very front and center in the department. We recognize,

because we do hear from boards and we hear from schools, difficulties that they

have, not with getting computers but maintaining them. That is an area that we

are looking at with Dr. Warren taking the lead for us.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: But he is looking at it from a staffing perspective in

administration and secretarial area, which is directly coming out of the

collective bargaining process. So it is very much staff oriented and staffing

levels. That piece will not include looking at how boards may be funded for

technology. That is not a part of his mandate, is it?

MS FOOTE: No, but they can - I guess in terms of maintenance, I was

thinking, from that aspect of it, because you mentioned hiring computer

technicians. That is why I was looking at that aspect of it; but, there is

nothing to stop boards from using their incentive funding, for instance, to buy

computers.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: That incentive funding, I guess, by now is - as I

understood it, the incentive is based on school closures and boards being able

to keep the net savings from school closures and for three-year periods.

MS FOOTE: That is right.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: With the stabilization that has occurred in recent

years with the number of schools being closed, that wave of school closures -

would it be fair to say that the big wave of school closures is somewhat behind

us now? There are still some possibly, but the wave of them, the bulk of them,

is it fair to say that's behind us?

MS FOOTE: There are still some boards out there that have some

consolidation that they are looking at.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: But the wave of them, I will use that word, the bulk of

them are probably done. So the opportunity for this category of funding, there

is an endpoint for this special incentive process here, because at some point -

I will just use Vista District where I live, they have stabilized now. There

will be no more school closures in Vista District for a long, long time. So the

potential for Vista District to ever come up with any funding for this source is

over; done. Once the next couple of year are over, they are finished.

MS FOOTE: I do know though that some boards have, in fact, used their

incentive funding to buy computers. Again, it is like everything else when we

talk about whether or not - I am sure all boards could use more. Those are

discussions that take place when we are budgeting, whether or not we are going

to be to find additional money, and there may be other ways to look at that.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I guess, just as a commentary - and I commend the

incentives in the area of technology that the department has undertaken in

recent years. Going hand-in-hand with that, I think there needs to be the

recognition that boards need to be supported with that technology to be able to

keep current and also to acquire new stuff.

The other piece of this is - no doubt you have heard this story before, and

to be frank with you, I have never seen verification of the data. So feel

comfortable in contradicting me, which I am sure you probably will. The measure

that I have heard referenced is that school boards get, on average, fifty-five

cents a square foot for their buildings and they compare that to what it costs

to maintain this building and other government buildings. First of all, is that

an accurate statement, that, on average, boards get fifty-five cents a square

foot to maintain the buildings?

MS FOOTE: No, they get fifty-five cents per square foot of floor area,

but that does not include, as it does in public buildings, the salary costs that

would be factored in for maintenance. In fact, if we factor into all of the

other costs, we would come out about even with the cost to maintain Works,

Services buildings versus the school buildings.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I throw this out for your reaction, and I do not throw

it out because I am suggesting I have a strong position that we should look at

it or government should be looking at it and that should be a direction; but,

given the realignment of the system that has really occurred in the last number

of years and the consolidation of schools - and as I said a moment ago, the wave

of closure is pretty well over. So you have some sense of where you are going to

have buildings. You could almost map now where you are going to have school

buildings in the Province for the next ten or fifteen years. With the amount of

time and energy and aggravation school boards have in and around the maintenance

of buildings - and which takes away from their core focus, which is to provide

instruction to the students - has the department given consideration to saying

that we are not in the business of maintaining buildings? Give that to Works,

Services, and we become the tenants in the buildings. We will go in with our

teachers at 9 o'clock in the morning and we will have some contractual

arrangement for the control of schools.

I had a recent discussion with one of the site directors at one of the

campuses of the College of the North Atlantic who does not worry at all about

the physical building. They have full control of the building in terms of school

activities, nights, weekends, days. Whatever they want to do, it is their

building, but in terms of the maintenance of it, snowclearing, painting and all

that kind of stuff, they do not worry about that. Works, Services have their own

staff in place. Given this ongoing problem with maintenance that school boards

appear to have, and you do not hear those same outcries from government

buildings, is it worthy of some consideration? Have you given that some thought?

MS FOOTE: I remember when I first went into the department asking why, in

fact, Works, Services did not have responsibility for school buildings. At that

time we had gotten into a discussion with them about the possibility of them

taking on responsibility for schools, but it really did not go anywhere. It was

something we had a discussion about but there was no real desire there by Works,

Services and Transportation to take responsibility for the school buildings. So,

I guess, it did not go anywhere other than we continue to maintain them and we

still have to continue to provide small schools in remote parts of this

Province.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I wasn't looking at it in terms of who is

responsible, but it would appear though that in a community where you have a

number of schools or a school and in that same community you have one or more

government buildings, then those government buildings are always well

maintained. If a leak appears in a window someone is in fixing it. If it needs

to be painted, it gets painted.

Whereas, school boards go around with five

gallon buckets spread around classrooms and you have people up on roofs in the

wintertime pushing off snow because they are afraid it is going to collapse, and

all that kind of stuff happens.

I appreciate the budget restraints but if you are focused purely on the

education piece of it, and I know from my own experience as a school trustee and

a board chair for a number of years, the amount of time consumed by the director

and the board around building stuff - the physical plants that are around the

district are just enormous. It was a major, major aggravation and an unnecessary

diversion from what the real business was about.

MS FOOTE: Yes, and you make a valid point. In discussion with Works,

Services, if you consider that we are in 326 sites with our schools, that would

be a major undertaking for them compared to the number of buildings they have to

maintain now and probably why there wasn't a great willingness there to move

in that direction.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Yes, and they would have to bring it to the standard of

the rest of the buildings too. That did not get lost on anybody I am sure.

MS FOOTE: I have to speak to that because when you consider the money

that we have put into the system over the last couple of years, and we are

talking $170 million in (inaudible) and redevelopments -

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: They are more receptive to doing it now.

MS FOOTE: - twelve million in roof repairs and window repairs. We have

not been shy about the money we have been investing in ensuring that our

buildings are brought up to standards that we can all be proud of.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The other piece of school board finance I would like to

talk a little bit about is the - because if you look at boards budgets and if

you look at the in and out figures, because teacher's salaries go in and out,

and then if you look at the line items that are - I will not use the term in and

out but they are very directive, like utilities and so on. The board does not

have a whole lot of discretion as to where it can come up with money for any

kind of things other than the day-to-day operations that they have.

I understand there are a number of boards that currently have some - relative

to their flexibility or relative to the discretionary money that they have on an

annual basis they have some significant debt load. Can you table for us or share

with us the accumulative operating debts of each of the boards in the Province?

Do you have that figure there?

MS FOOTE: Rob might have that. I know that we have been working with a

couple of boards, certainly the board in Labrador, where they have some

significant problems. Part of their problem stems from - again, it goes back to

what you were saying about boards time being consumed with things other than

delivering education. When you look at the Labrador School Board, they are

responsible for housing, teacher housing. So that has been a monumental cost for

them because there has been a significant amount of vandalism to those as well.

They have incurred costs having to repair that because you cannot just leave it.

Then you have travel costs, of course, in Labrador. So, all of these things have

added to their deficit.

What we are attempting to do to help alleviate that problem for them is to

look at housing for professionals in Labrador, whether it is nurses or teachers,

looking at the infrastructure agreement that may come with the federal

government and the Province, to see if Newfoundland and Labrador Housing can

take on responsibility for professionals, in Labrador in particular, because we

have to be able to provide housing as part of the incentive or at least provide

it on a cost recovery basis for teachers.

That is one board that has experienced some difficulties, but when you look

at the problems they have you can see where they come from and that it is a real

cost they are being asked to absorb. We can certainly get you the numbers in

terms of the overall deficit of the boards. We have boards - in fact, I think

your own board is doing very well.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: We just finished paying of the debt.

MS FOOTE: Yes, absolutely. We have another board in fact that has a

surplus.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Could your deputy just read out the figures, Madam

Chair, if you don't mind? Then I am finished with the questions, if you could

answer that question by reading out the figures.

MS FOOTE: I think Bob may have the numbers, the ADM.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay. We will have Bob read out the numbers and then we will

move to the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne, please.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you very much.

MR. YOUNG: I do have the numbers on the accumulated deficit of the

boards, they are some $3.4 million in total.

I will just mention this to you, this takes us to the last set of financial

statements that we have from each of the boards which goes back to June of last

year. We will not get the next set - their year-end is June. We did not get

their financial statements in from the boards until September, October. So the

next set of financial statements that we will get in from the boards will be

this coming September, October. While we are aware of certain situations and

work with the boards quite closely to address any anomalies, as the minister

just outlined, for example, in Labrador, the figures that I will give you now

relate to the end of last year's financial statements.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: That is fine, thank you.

MR. YOUNG: Pardon me, Minister?

MS FOOTE: I think the point to remember here too is, of course, under the

act school boards are not allowed to carry a deficit. As soon as we become aware

that there are issues there we go in and work very closely with them to try and

deal with that and ask them, in fact, to put in place a financial plan. I

suppose if you were to look at how the education boards have done, compared with

the health care boards, we are doing very well.

MR. YOUNG: I will just read the list for you. The Labrador board, and

these are round numbers, approximately a $950,000 deficit. The Northern

Peninsula, about $189,000 deficit; Corner Brook board, $600,000 deficit. There

is a surplus in the Cormack Trail board of $61,000. Board five, which is Baie

Verte-Central-Connaigre, $890,000 surplus. The Lewisporte-Gander board, $500,000

surplus. The Burin board had a $1.2 million deficit. The Vista board, $165,000

deficit; Avalon West, $317,000 deficit; and Avalon East, $211,000 surplus. The

Francophone board was at a break-even position.

In looking at these numbers, as I said, the net of that is $3.4 million, but

in the ones where I have identified deficits, as the minister has indicated, we

have engaged in discussions with all of the boards and have put in place plans

that will address all of these deficits in the very short term.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: We can get a copy of that, I guess, can we, Minister?

MADAM CHAIR: Would you like to table that, Mr. Young?

MR. YOUNG: This copy, at the moment, has some markings on it, but I would

be perfectly happy to give you a copy tomorrow or the next day, whenever.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne.

MR. HEDDERSON: Good night to all.

I am going to start off just on a general sense. Basically, when it comes to

budget allocation for Education, I know there was a split last year. I will

just, for example, go back five years. There has been a steady decrease in the

allocation, percentage wise, of funding to Education, something like 20 per cent

in 1998 down to 18.9 per cent as we speak. Is this a trend? Is it explained by

less demands? How would you look at that, Minister? It keeps dropping.

MS FOOTE: I think it is simply explained by the fact that, at one point

we had 160,000 students in our school system. Today we have 83,000 students. At

one point we had, I guess, over 1,000 school buildings. Today we are down to

326. I think logic would tell you that we don't have as many students, we don't

have as many structures, so clearly we should not be incurring the same amount

of costs. Having said that, we have not, even though there has been a decrease

over a period of years, if you look at what the boards are being allocated -

because this is a new system now in terms of what the boards have been allocated

since they have come into being - in fact, they have seen a steady increase in

the amount of money that has gone to the boards.

MR. HEDDERSON: There is the dilemma. Again, we are hearing that basically

all the savings are going back in and everything is staying in the system. What

you look at when you see decreases like you are talking about - you know what I

mean - that is going out of the system, we are getting less opportunity to

reinvest the funds, so again I don't understand. That is a dilemma that I

would like to have explained. How can it decrease and yet increase?

MS FOOTE: Well, it can decrease from what it was, I guess, based on the

per pupil, but I can tell you that I take grave exception to the fact that you

would suggest that we are not putting the savings back into the system; because,

I can tell you, whether it is going back in for capital, whether it is going

back in for maintenance, or whether it is going back in for whatever, it is

going back into the system. You do not put $170 million back into the system for

new builds and redevelopment and not consider that as an infusion of money back

into the education system. But, if you look at the per pupil grant, the

percentage of change, if you look at operating expenditures, we have seen a

reduction of 7.2 per cent over a ten-year period and you have seen the operating

expenditures per pupil increase by 33.5 per cent. So, there has been an increase

in terms of the amount of expenditures per student. In fact, we have gone from

1991-1992, when expenditure per student was $4,818 and today, 2002, we are at

$6,434. So, clearly there has been an increase overall in terms of the amount of

money that is going into the system. All I can do is give you the facts; they

speak for themselves.

MR. HEDDERSON: Again, Minister, the point that I was getting across is:

We are losing our piece of the pie with regard to the Budget. It is steadily

decreasing. It has decreased since the 1980s. When you look at what you are

spending per student, obviously, as the numbers drop, what you are spending on

students, if you keep the same amount steady, is going to go up. My point simply

was: I just don't understand how you can cut back by percentage points each

year and still maintain the same level of funding.

MR. YOUNG: I can address just a couple of the issues. If you look at our

school board operating grants over the past five years, you will not find the

school board operating grant component decreasing. I think you are making

reference to the bottom line of the vote of the Department of Education.

MR. HEDDERSON: Exactly.

MR. YOUNG: If you look at the bottom line of the vote, for example, five

years ago capital was voted in the Department of Education. It is not voted in

the Department of Education today, because today it is voted within the

Newfoundland and Labrador Investment Corporation. There is a significant portion

of the funding that has been taken away from the Estimates, if you want, and

vested in the corporation, so you are bound to see a significant difference

because of that.

Over the last five years there have been cost-shared agreements that the

department has had that in fact have fallen off the table and were not

necessarily generating the federal revenue and the expenditures and so on

because of that factor.

Another one that I could just think about is pay periods. We referenced one

of the pay periods tonight where, if you look at one particular year in

Education on a bottom line, we might have had, in that year, twenty-five pay

periods. That would show $14.5 million per pay period less than a year in which

we could have twenty-seven pay periods, which could show the Estimates of the

department on a bottom line basis up by almost $30 million.

We are going through those kinds of shifts and balances but I suggest to you

that if you look at the operating grant of the Department of Education that we

apply to school boards, we are pretty much increasing or at least maintaining

the same as it was four to five years ago.

MR. HEDDERSON: You are saying that the capital is with the Investment

Corporation.

MR. YOUNG: That is correct.

MR. HEDDERSON: That shows up where in the budget?

MR. YOUNG: It does not show in the budget. It is a Crown corporation and

it is appropriated from government by way of loan structures and so on for that

corporation to enable it to borrow money and so on, and through investment by

government in that corporation so that it can engage in capital activities.

MR. HEDDERSON: There is no problem, that is accessible, obviously, the

information. Could it be tabled, for example, as to what has happened in the

last five years with regard to that investment corporation, how much money has

gone in and so on?

MS FOOTE: That would be tabled in an annual report that I will be tabling

as the minister responsible.

MR. HEDDERSON: It will be tabled?

MS FOOTE: In an annual report. We have to report to the House, so that

would be tabled in an annual report.

MR. HEDDERSON: In this particular year, and again if we look at the

bottom line - I like looking at bottom lines - we had $527,340,000 budgeted.

MS FOOTE: Sorry, where are you?

MR. HEDDERSON: Just overall on your entire K-12 budget.

MS FOOTE: Okay.

MR. HEDDERSON: You would talk about $527 million budgeted, $537 million

spent, and $10 million more than projected. Now, I assume that $10 million then

was what was already indicated? That has already been answered, so that is that

$10 million?

MS FOOTE: (Inaudible) special warrant, right?

MR. HEDDERSON: You mentioned pay periods and that sort of thing, so that

would account then for the somewhat $25 million that is not in the budget this

year, less than what it was last year. That is strictly two pay periods, then?

MR. YOUNG: The difference is two pay periods, and there is approximately

$14 million to $14.5 million per pay period.

MR. HEDDERSON: Obviously that will show up in the budget next year and we

will have an increase, so to speak, in the allocations by about $25 million?

MR. YOUNG: That is right. There will be twenty-five pay periods next year

in teachers' salaries.

MR. HEDDERSON: Twenty-five this year coming, but twenty-seven next year.

MR. YOUNG: In 2002-2003 there will be twenty-five pay periods and in

2001-2002 we had twenty-seven pay periods.

MR. HEDDERSON: Next year?

MR. YOUNG: It could very well go back to twenty-six.

MR. HEDDERSON: So that is how it is reflected?

MR. YOUNG: Yes, it has to do with the collective agreement with the NLTA.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay.

MS FOOTE: (Inaudible) that we had to take as part of (inaudible).

MR. HEDDERSON: That shows up this year, too.

I guess, under Executive and Support Services, the Minister's Office and so

forth, this

section of the department, $4.7 million was estimated. I am sorry.

No, it was estimated at $4.7 million - you were off by approximately $360,000 -

and a final total of something like $5.1 million, that would be the bottom line.

I am looking at bottom lines here. That $360,000 was certainly taken from

somewhere else. It was not included in the $10 million?

MS FOOTE: Where are you again?

MR. HEDDERSON: Just overall, under Executive and Support Services, you

estimated $4.7 million, you spent about $5.1 million, and a difference of about

$360,000. Where would that have come from?

MR. MANNING: As a point, could you refer to the subhead when you are

asking a question? It is easier to follow that way.

MR. HEDDERSON: Yes, this is the Executive and Support Services under -

MR. MANNING: The number of the subhead, because the minister and staff do

not have the book that you are following there. They just have the subhead

numbers.

MR. HEDDERSON: I am sorry. It is all under the Executive and Support

Services starting with the Minister's Office, 1.1.01. If you want to go to the

bottom line on page 173, I am just looking at the bottom line, and basically

there was a budget of $4.7 million, you spent $5.1 million, there was a

difference of $360,000. Where did that come from, basically?

MS FOOTE: It could have come from anywhere in the department. It could

have been slippage in some other areas. Remember, I told you we had a delay in

recruitment - no, in printing, for instance, where we did not print as many

publications. Some of it could have come from there. It could be any slippage in

the department under any heading.

MR. HEDDERSON: Three hundred and sixty thousand, is that an acceptable -

it seems like a lot to me to be underestimated?

MS FOOTE: No, just go through and if you go through the Estimates we can

break it down for you, but you can see where we have had slippage, even if you

look at some of the - let me see - Purchased Services would be an area, for

instance.

MR. YOUNG: Just as an example, the minister made reference earlier to a

number of things, including our insurance deducible, education awareness, and

carpeting and so on. That is all additional things that were put into the budget

this year that reflect in the total that you are talking about of the subhead

adding up to the $5.1 million. That was recaptured, as the minister has

correctly identified, from elements throughout the department where we did not

spend necessarily the amount that was budgeted so we reallocated within the

department.

MR. HEDDERSON: Under Executive Support in 1.2., Minister, you talked

about Thailand and China.

MS FOOTE: China, not Thailand.

MR. HEDDERSON: Oh, I thought you mentioned Thailand.

MS FOOTE: No, just China.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, I am hearing things tonight. China it was, right?

MS FOOTE: You can go to Thailand if you wish.

MR. HEDDERSON: If you want to send me to Thailand - I don't know if I

would get support to vote on that here tonight. I just heard a comment on this

side. Certainly, a one-way ticket would be unanimous, right?

MS FOOTE: I didn't say that, but thank you whoever (inaudible).

MR. HEDDERSON: No, Minister, I will admit, it didn't come from that

side over there.

It is interesting, and I think we talked about this last year, so the

agreement is in place or pending, you said?

MS FOOTE: The agreement is actually in place. The way the Chinese work,

of course, the Chinese government would be involved and it would be government

to government; and, for the Chinese government to agree, we had to provide a

licence, but in order to provide a licence we had to have a Memorandum of

Understanding which had to be approved by Cabinet. Cabinet agreed that this was

a good thing to do and then the licence was done. Nothing has started on it yet,

other than the fact that they have to be able to show the Government of China

that they have a licence in order to move forward.

MR. HEDDERSON: A concern, of course, again you mentioned recruitment of

our Newfoundland teachers to go to China. I don't have to say too much about

recruitment within the Province proving to be difficult in some areas. What type

of numbers are we talking about here, and what sort of involvement will our

government have in providing teachers? Is it an open market? What is going to be

the story there, Minister.

MS FOOTE: They would like to see a fair number of teachers from

Newfoundland, and I know that a lot of our teachers like to go to other places,

but there will be no one who will be forced to go to China. If they cannot get

the full complement, they can take other Canadian teachers. We would like for it

to be an opportunity for any Newfoundland teachers who would like to go, but

they will certainly look at Canadian teachers to make up the complement if they

cannot get them from Newfoundland.

MR. HEDDERSON: How many teachers were we talking about, Minister?

MS FOOTE: From Newfoundland?

MR. HEDDERSON: Yes. What size would this school be?

MS FOOTE: Well, at this point, there are no definitive numbers but they

would be looking at about one-third of the teachers being from Newfoundland or

Canada.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay.

With regard to our curriculum, because obviously we have put a lot of time,

money and resources into our curriculum, in our development, and literally it is

intellectual property. It is alright to be targeted for this particular school

but, you know, if it ends up in China, what guarantee do we have? First of all,

are we getting good return on that particular service in a sense that, financial

wise - and a guarantee that all of a sudden this curriculum will not be popping

up at different spots in China? What kind of a guarantee do we have there?

MS FOOTE: The agreement that we have would see them using our curriculum

for K-12. Part of the agreement would see regular inspections being done to

ensure that they are, in fact, adhering to the curriculum, if it is to be a

Canadian school using the Newfoundland curriculum. They will purchase the

textbooks from us. What I have said to them is, it is not to be a cost,

whatsoever, to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, not even to have the

inspections done. That cost will be borne by the school. They will purchase the

textbooks because, as you so aptly put it, we have invested a lot of money in

developing that curriculum. So that is our contribution in terms of the

development of the curriculum. Now they still have to purchase the textbooks

from us. Anything to do with the school will be covered off by the school, and

they charge a substantial dollar to the parents of the students. So it is not

going to be onerous at all on the school, in fact, to carry out this MOU.

MR. HEDDERSON: In this initiative, you are opening the doors of

post-secondary for these students. We do know that with our decline in

population, I do not think anyone would be averse for any international students

turning up on any schools doorsteps in this Province.

Again, we are providing the K-12 curriculum. Are they giving us any sort of a

guarantee that if they were to travel abroad to go into post-secondary, that we

have first dibs at them? Do we have any hold on them at all? I know it is hard,

but is there anything in the agreement that would encourage them to come to

Newfoundland and Labrador?

MS FOOTE: Encourage is a good word. Certainly, when you are talking about

post-secondary education you cannot dictate to those students where they go.

Clearly, a lot of them have gone to the US, have gone to Chicago, have gone to

LA, and some of them have gone to Montreal to McGill. But, we will have these

students for a period of time to introduce them to Newfoundland and Labrador. In

fact, Newfoundland history will be one of the courses that will be part of the

curriculum. So we are really looking to use this opportunity to introduce them

to Newfoundland, and marketing is going to be a really important part of this by

the university.

The university now has to find an additional 1,000 students for this coming

September. So clearly, this is an opportunity to help them in their recruitment

efforts where we will provide the venue for them to go and market the university

or market CONA to a body of students who are looking, once they get to Grade 12,

to go to a post-secondary institution; but we cannot dictate. It would be unfair

to put into any agreement because again, remember this is not costing us

anything. In fact, we are very fortunate to have been able to get to this point

where we can have the Newfoundland curriculum delivered and at the same time,

create an awareness about Newfoundland and Labrador that, hopefully, will result

in a natural progression being to attend post-secondary institutions in

Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. HEDDERSON: Under the next heading, Administrative Support. I was

curious when you mentioned about student support for - I believe you referenced

math competitions. Under this there was - for travel and you mentioned MUN. Is

it specifically geared towards a particular competition, a particular group, or

a particular curriculum area?

MS FOOTE: Not really. It is meant to be for those students who want to

compete on a national-international basis. There is not a lot of money there. It

is meant to be something that they can tap into if they are going off to compete

on a national-international level.

MR. HEDDERSON: One of the schools in my district did a Geography

Challenge and they will go on up to Ottawa for the national and perhaps on to

the international. The Geography Challenge is what it is called. Would that fall

under this heading?

MS FOOTE: Sure.

MR. HEDDERSON: Is it possible? Again, who has availed of this, Minister?

How many groups have availed of it?

MS FOOTE: This is new money.

MR. HEDDERSON: Oh, this is - oh, okay.

MS FOOTE: This is new. As I mentioned to the Member for Placentia, before

the department was split - under Youth Services there was money allocated for

travel and grants to the Boys and Girls Club, and other groups that availed of

it. When the department was split the money went into Youth Services and

Post-Secondary. So this is new money.

MR. HEDDERSON: Are we talking about $50,000?

MS FOOTE: Fifty thousand dollars.

MR. HEDDERSON: Right.

MR. PRESS: I just want to say, if anything, just for fun. I got tired of

saying to the minister, we really do not have a fund. Once the split was made -

and any flexibility that the minister might have had was gone under that grant

program. Effectively, we had really good potential events taking place for young

people in the Province but had no mechanism within the department, legitimately,

to provide some support. This was an attempt to legitimize this process and

really find some support; very small. You recognize $50,000 will not go very far

when you look at some of those events. But, it is a recognition that we really

cannot be saying no to a lot of very good, potentially good, educational

endeavours by students.

MR. HEDDERSON: Yes.

MADAM CHAIR: Excuse me, if I may? I must inform the hon. member that his

time has now expired.

MR. HEDDERSON: So quickly? With so many questions.

MADAM CHAIR: If you have further questions, we will revert to you.

Thank you, Mr. Hedderson.

I would now like to call on the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, if I could go back to 2.1.02., School Board Operations. Under 10.,

Grants and Subsidies, Student Assistants. There was a Budget amount of $9.6

million last year and Revised to $9.9 million, and down this year from last year's

budgeted amount to $9.5 million. I just wonder if we could get some explanation

on that, please?

MS FOOTE: Again, that goes back to the number of pay periods.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MS FOOTE: You will find that throughout, the same with the teachers as

with the student assistants.

MR. MANNING: On Student Assistants, we had some discussion in the House

yesterday, myself and you. I am just wondering, could you - a teacher, in most

cases, is based on student population. I know there are parents out there who

believe, rightly or wrongly, that every student who needs assistance should have

a student assistant, but I realize that is not the way it is done. I realize

that financially, I guess, it cannot be done that way either. I am just

wondering, how do you determine that or who determines - in a school we may have

a student assistant who assists two students and the next school up the road may

assist four. Is it based on the level of a concern - I use the word concern - or

the level of whatever particular situation that child finds himself or herself

in?

MS FOOTE: Based strictly on need.

MR. MANNING: Based strictly on need. Who determines that need, the local

administration of the school or the school board?

MS FOOTE: There is a team, and as we talked about yesterday, there is an

ISSP team. These are Individual Support Services Program, and it is part of what

we called Pathways. That team would be comprised of someone from the department,

someone maybe from Health and Community Services, whatever supports are needed

but, certainly, the teacher and the parents of the child - as well as what other

supports in the system that the child has access to - with a lot of consultation

and discussion on what the need is. They would then determine where that student

falls in terms of the types of supports the student would need, whether or not

the student would need a student assistant, a categorical teacher, a special

education teacher. All of that would come into play through the ISSP process.

MR. MANNING: From a parental point of view, is there an appeal process?

For example, if this committee decides that a student needs a student assistant

and the parent, for some reason or other, thinks different than that, is there

an appeal process? What exactly is that appeal process?

MS FOOTE: This is done in consultation with the parents. So this is

ongoing. I mean, there isn't a decision taken without involving the parent,

and it is an ongoing thing. If, in fact, a decision taken is one that the parent

finds is not fulfilling the needs of the student, then they will go back and

review that. It is an ongoing process in the department through our Student

Support Services and working with the school, working with the guidance

counselor and working with the other departments of government, that maybe

called into play here. It is an ongoing process. It is continually being

reviewed.

MR. MANNING: You have not run into the problem, I guess, of a parent

appealing. What I am hearing from you is that they are part of the process and,

hopefully, their input is taken well. I should not say hopefully, it is taken

into consideration when a decision is made. Would that be -

MS FOOTE: Yes, and even if the student is an older student that student

is involved in the process. I know that we have had calls to the department

about particular students. It is just a call to the department and then Brenda

Smith, who heads up the Student Support Services, will take the call and then

get in touch with the school, work with the principal and work with whomever at

the school we need to work with to ensure that the student is getting the

services that he or she requires. It is being monitored on a constant basis and

that is what is really valuable about the ISSP process. It is not something that

is done in isolation, it is an ongoing process.

MR. MANNING: If there is a parent out there who has a question and feels,

whatever the case may be, that they are not fully being heard by the ISSP

process, they can contact Brenda Smith of your department?

MS FOOTE: Absolutely. All they have to do is give us a call. Give Brenda

a call. I have to say, that process, by the way, has received national

recognition as a very good process.

Again, I know you talked about student assistants, and we talked about that

yesterday. Part of the problem I think we have there is that they are called

student assistants and not teacher assistants. You can have a student assistant,

depending on the need of the child, who can be responsible for any number of

children; but the problem, if you are in a school and a student assistant is

assigned and there is only one child who has a particular need, if another child

comes into the system the parent automatically thinks that student assistant

belongs to his or her child, and that was never the intent. It was meant to be,

depending again on the need of the child - could share the service of the

student assistant.

MR. MANNING: Is there consideration being given to changing the name?

Maybe it cannot be done, I do not know but - I realize what you said - I am

dealing with a situation in my own district where - not to put the parent at any

lower level than anybody else, it was just that somehow or other they don't

feel they are involved in the process. I do not want to give any particulars of

that person why, but it is a single mom and things that go with that.

MS FOOTE: Have her call Brenda.

MR. MANNING: She feels that there should be a student assistant for her

child. I tried explaining it to her but - it is just that there are other

children coming into the program now and the student assistant has to be spread

out a bit more. That is what is causing the conflict.

MS FOOTE: If you look at the situation in Nova Scotia, they are called

teacher assistants; the same job descriptions, everything. You don't run into

the same type of reluctance, I guess, in terms of sharing when it is called

teacher assistant verses student assistant.

MR. MANNING: Yes, a name is important I guess.

On 2.1.08., Newfoundland and Labrador Education Investment Corporation - I

think Mr. Young mentioned this earlier. We see a $1.5 million Budget; $5.3

million Revised. That is based on, I guess, construction and renovations or

whatever.

MS FOOTE: That is the $4 million of the three year commitment by

government of $12 million. This is the final $4 million.

MR. MANNING: There is none of that carried over into this fiscal?

MS FOOTE: That is for this year, yes. That $4 million there, that was the

final $4 million. What do you mean, for the 2002/03?

MR. MANNING: Yes, none being carried into this year's Estimates.

MS FOOTE: No, that was the final - that was the third year of -

MR. MANNING: So all that has been expended or -

MS FOOTE: That's right, all been committed.

MR. MANNING: All been committed, I should say, yes. Some of these

constructions are still ongoing but it is committed to the construction.

MS FOOTE: Yes, that's right.

MR. MANNING: Under 2.2.01., Curriculum Development, we had a Budget

amount of $868,000, Revised is $727,000, give or take $140,000. We are back up

again this year to $854,000. You mentioned earlier on, concerning printing and

things like that but I am just wondering, from a curriculum development point of

view, is there instruction materials - there is a decrease here, I am just

wondering -

MS FOOTE: That was delayed recruitment.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MS FOOTE: That is reflected in the second one as well, Transportation and

Communications.

MR. MANNING: From $240,500 down to $140,500; the same thing.

MS FOOTE: That's right because - remember we had the NAPE strike. So

there was less travel happening then in terms of -

MR. MANNING: Under Professional Services, under the same heading -

MS FOOTE: Sorry, what was that?

MR. MANNING: Professional Services, under the same heading, 2.2.01.05,

there were no funds budgeted but there is a $10,000 expenditure. There was

nothing budgeted in the first place, so I am wondering -

MS FOOTE: Is that the meeting?

MR. PRESS: (Inaudible) curriculum and so on in ways that they consist

their journal and so on. It is one publication that we anticipated this year

(inaudible).

MR. MANNING: There was $10,000 budgeted last year - there wasn't any

budgeted last year but spent $10,000, and there is $10,000 budgeted this year.

So, the $10,000 last year?

MR. PRESS: The $10,000 last year was for another publication, a

curriculum guide. I think it was - I am trying to think now. I think it was

probably the intermediate curricular guide. It was one of the curriculum guides.

That is fundamental -

MR. MANNING: I am not overly concerned about that. I am just wondering

what it is for. It is for printing of some type of thing?

MR. PRESS: Oh yes, printing.

MR. MANNING: The same thing under the next heading, 2.2.02., Language

Programs. You had a $7,000 expenditure with no funds budgeted. Would that be for

the same - and there is $10,000 this year.

MR. PRESS: These are all curriculum guides.

MR. MANNING: All curriculum guides?

MR. PRESS: Yes.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MR. PRESS: It depends on how the curriculum rolls out. Some years you

might have none, other years you might several guides that just happen to go

through because their curriculum rotation comes through on the cycle.

MR. MANNING: Okay. So is there a change in the curriculum?

MR. PRESS: Usually, if there is a new curriculum guide, there is a new

curriculum that has been printed and implemented in the school.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

Under Program Development, 2.2.03., Centre for Distance Learning and

Innovation. I believe others may have questions on those. I just wanted to ask

some questions on the figures.

Salaries, we had budgeted $434,000, we revised that down to $170,000. It is a

considerable amount of a decrease. Could you explain?

MS FOOTE: Well, this is a new activity, and I made reference to it

earlier. What we had anticipated did not materialize in terms of activities

throughout the year. That is why you are seeing the difference. You can see it

is back up for 2002/03.

MR. MANNING: So, you are hoping to implement this year?

MS FOOTE: Yes.

MR. MANNING: Okay, but still it dropped from $434,000 down to $368,000.

MS FOOTE: That is right, and you will see that if you look down through

all of them. You see the drop of $450,000, if you look at Transportation and

Communications. It is the same thing. While we had anticipated higher

expenditures it was not rolled out to the extent we anticipated that it would

be.

MR. MANNING: Under Transportation and Communications, you just mentioned

from $450,000 down to $346,000, but then we have a large increase for this year's

budget of $840,000. It seems to be a little more than what the increase was in

the other section. I am just wondering - it is almost double the amount.

MS FOOTE: I guess it gets back to an earlier question in terms of

technology and connectivity. That will be the additional cost to bring

additional connectivity to seventy schools, online.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MS FOOTE: And, of course, where we will largely be phasing out the

telemedicine model in going with CDLI.

MR. MANNING: As we follow down to 2.2.04., under Purchased Services

again, they have a Budget of $25,600, and a Revised amount of $70,600, which is

a $45,000 increase. Now we are back down this year to $23,600. Was there a

special service that had to be purchased there?

MS FOOTE: That was increased costs associated with public exams. It was

for the printing, as well for criteria and reference testing. So that is where

you see the significant jump there.

MR. MANNING: Would that be followed through in this year's school year?

MS FOOTE: Do you want to answer that?

MR. PRESS: No, it would not necessarily be the same funding. Last year we

had some extraordinary costs associated with the startup of the public exams;

additional printing. Now we will absorb that into our direct cost - I am not

sure where they came out of now, but we do not anticipate any significant

increase as we have now.

MR. MANNING: What does it cost to run the public exams? A ballpark

figure.

MS FOOTE: Overall costs? Well, I guess we have the marking boards.

MR. PRESS: The incremental costs associated with implementing the public

exams, if I recall, was in the order of about $250,000. I think it might have

been $250,000, $270,000. That included, if I recall, some consultants, an

additional consultant or two, the increased cost of travel associated with that,

the developmental cost of bringing - exams are not developed by the Department

of Education, they are developed by teachers. We bring together teacher

committees and so on to develop the exam, to administer them, and to mark them.

So the cost, I believe, was in the order of about $270,000. That is right off my

head now.

MR. MANNING: Okay, that's fine. Would that be the same cost this year?

MR. PRESS: Oh, yes. Once it is in, it is in.

MR. MANNING: You are talking approximately $250,000 to run the public

exams across the Province, give or take some -

MR. PRESS: I believe so, yes.

MR. MANNING: Under what heading - where would that be covered here?

MR. PRESS: The next page, 2.3.02., Student Testing and Evaluation.

Although, there are some costs associated with - most of 2.2.04. are some

incremental costs that we have carried over, but essentially, it deals with

evaluations, scholarships, CRTs and so on.

The following page, 2.3.02., deals with public examinations, markers,

sitters, which come under Professional Services.

MS FOOTE: Of the $70,600, in terms of Purchased Services - Student

Testing and Evaluation - the printing of public exams cost $63,500 of that

number.

MR. MANNING: I will go on to what Mr. Press just touched on, 2.3.02.,

Student Testing and Evaluation. The $250,000 that you mentioned that time - we

will use that as the ballpark figure for public exams - will be covered under

Professional Services. The salary amount here under 01. was almost $700,000,

which was up around $150,000 on salaries. Why would that be? How come we have a

decrease there of $150,000?

MS FOOTE: We had two auditor positions that we did not fill, that we

anticipated filling. If you remember, the Williams-Sparkes report recommended

putting in place two auditors. Those positions have yet to be filled.

MR. MANNING: So they have not been filled this year either?

MS FOOTE: No.

MR. MANNING: Do you anticipate filling them? Because your budget is up to

$651,000.

MS FOOTE: Yes, absolutely.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

Under 2.4.01., Student Support Services, I am going to lump two of these

together because it will make it easier - 04. and 06. - Supplies and Purchased

Services. We had budgeted amounts of $189,000 and $188,000, and on both we had

major decreases of $113,000 and $123,000 respectively. I am just wondering. We

are back this year up again to $175,000 and $180,000. I am just wondering about

the decrease there on Student Support Services.

MS FOOTE: On the Supplies one, I guess we try and project how much we are

going to need but these, in fact, are supplies that are purchased based on

individual student needs, so you never really know, to purchase things like, for

instance, large keyboards and voice output communications devices, special

needs. The expenditure was down from what we had anticipated were the costs we

would incur.

For Purchased Services, the lesser amount was a result of having a delay in

generating a Special Education Policy Manual and other publications, and that

resulted in less printing being required.

MR. MANNING: Under Student Support Services, as you mentioned, for

special needs children in regard to Student Assistants, does that fall under the

same - your ISP, or in regard to looking for or asking for or requesting special

computers or special whatever - you mentioned keyboards and things - would that

fall under that committee also?

MS FOOTE: Yes.

MR. MANNING: That committee would cover all aspects of the special needs

child?

MS FOOTE: That is right, and they would look to this Budget for any

particular needs of the child.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

If we could go over to 3.2.01., Provincial Information and Library Resources,

they have budgeted $6.4 million. We see an increase to $7.6 million - of $1.2

million- and this year we are back down to $6.855 million. Is there a $1.2

million extra expense?

MS FOOTE: Yes, that was the additional million dollars that was put in

for library books, materials, and $200,000 for regionalization.

MR. MANNING: The $200,000, that was on the movement of the library board,

was it?

MS FOOTE: Yes.

MR. MANNING: On the cost associated with moving the library services,

would all the costs of moving be borne by your department or would that be borne

by Works, Services and Transportation also?

MS FOOTE: The cost of relocating the library services was $711,000 in

one-time costs.

MR. MANNING: Was that the total cost altogether for moving, or from your

department?

MS FOOTE: That is the total cost.

MR. MANNING: Of moving?

MS FOOTE: Yes.

MADAM CHAIR: Excuse me; I have to intervene.

The hon. member's time has elapsed. If you have further questions, I will

have to come back.

Thank you, Mr. Manning.

I would now like to call the Member for Humber East.

MR. MERCER: Just one or two questions of a local interest for me,

Minister. The private schools - in our district we have a private Catholic

school, the Immaculate Heart of Mary. How do you treat those schools vis--vis

regular publicly-funded schools?

MS FOOTE: We do not fund them in any way. That is one of about five

private schools in the Province.

MR. MERCER: How about school books?

MS FOOTE: No, we don't - they pay. We fund the public school system and

every student has an opportunity to go to the public school system which is

funded by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. We don't provide

textbooks to any private school.

MR. MERCER: It just seems to me that if you are a student, whether you go

to a publicly-funded or a privately-funded school, you are still a student of

the Province. I guess if you had gone to a publicly-funded school we would cover

some costs of the school book. Why would we not do the same with respect to the

privately-funded school?

MS FOOTE: Because we fund the public education system and there are costs

associated with doing that in terms of the cost per student, and that is the

policy. We fund, as a government, the public education system. If someone

chooses to establish a private school with fewer students per class, parents are

paying for that privilege or benefit, whatever you want to call it, then they

pay all the costs associated with that.

MR. MERCER: That I understand, and I believe in a privately-funded school

they should be responsible for the cost for their building and so on, but I am

getting at books. If that student went to a public school, we would pay a

certain percentage. I am wondering, just because a student goes down the road to

a privately-funded school, why wouldn't we do the same thing?

MS FOOTE: Because we do not fund any component of private education.

MR. MERCER: That is the bottom line: no component of the privately-funded

schools do we put any dollars into whatsoever.

MS FOOTE: That is right.

MR. MERCER: Okay.

The proposed reorganization of the school system in Corner Brook, the high

school system, particularly with respect to Herdman and Regina, is there

anything that you could share with me on that as to where we are right now? I

have had a number of discussions with the school board but perhaps there is

something in addition to that.

MS FOOTE: I have had no discussion in my department with respect to that.

You probably know as much as I do in terms of the interviews that have taken

place and the meetings that Dr. Elliott has been holding with all and sundry,

from what I can gather. I know that there was some suggestion at one point that

the department was advocating a super high school, and we set the record

straight that the department does not advocate. Boards have responsibility for

reorganization of schools, and it is strictly up to the board how they move

forward with this. That has been the extent of our involvement.

MR. MERCER: Thank you.

MS FOOTE: You're welcome.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Mercer.

I now call the Member for Trinity North. Do you have any further questions?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: If I could go back, I said earlier there were two areas

I wanted to talk a little bit about. One was board funding and the other was the

Centre for Distance Education. Just to wrap up on the board budgeting process,

there are, I guess, a couple of questions around the substitute teacher budget.

I notice in - I will find it in a second here now if you will bear with me -

subhead 2.1.01, Teaching Services, there is an issue here for substitute

teachers, or a line here for substitute teachers, under Grants and Subsidies,

but also there is - maybe the minister can share with me the current practice.

Boards, in addition to this figure here, because there are some parameters

around what boards can charge this particular cost under, as I understand it,

but there are some situations where the boards incur overruns on substitutes

that the board then has to come up with the funding themselves from their own

discretionary - not so much discretionary fund, but in the areas where they have

some flexibility. I commented earlier, as I understand, there are only a couple

of areas where they have some flexibility, so if boards go over in their

budgeting or use of substitute days then it has to come from that board fund

rather than this substitute teacher fund. Are those circumstances still

applicable today, as they used to be at one time?

MS FOOTE: I think the last time - and Bob can speak to this - I know that

we cover off 80 per cent of overruns that a board would have, or additional

costs that a board would have, in terms of a substitute budget. Bob, I don't

know if there is anything else that you want to add?

MR. YOUNG: There are two components to the substitute teacher budget. One

is the discretionary component; the other is the non-discretionary component.

Under the discretionary component, if the school board overruns the

discretionary component we will fund that to 80 per cent of the difference. On

the non-discretionary side - sorry, pardon me, I have it reversed. On the

non-discretionary side, we are funding 80 per cent. On the discretionary side,

where the board does have the use of resources and so on, it is up to them to

manage it. If they overrun that budget, they have to pay the overruns

themselves; however, if they wind up with, say, a surplus in one side versus the

other side, we do allow the boards the opportunity to net that cost so that they

can take advantage of a saving on one side, if they have it, and an overrun on

another. They can net the cost out, but the boards do have to fund the cost,

totally, of any overruns that they do have on the discretionary side.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: In both, though - I don't know which one would be

which, not that it really matters, I guess, but such things as in-servicing and

sick leave and replacement costs for sick leave would come from that substitute

budget?

MR. YOUNG: That is correct.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Those two areas are driven by collective agreements and

not necessarily a board having much control. A person's ability to avail of

sick leave is a collective agreement issue. The issue around in-servicing, I

assume there is certain criteria for in-servicing new courses, new programs, and

I gather with the emphasis in recent years on teacher development there is a

certain minimal amount of in-servicing and certain amounts of in-servicing going

to take place within a board. I guess the question becomes - and I understand

that some boards have been hit with this harder than some others, but I guess if

there are some areas where boards may not have that much flexibility and control

over their substitute days because of collective agreement benefits, they still

have, then, to take that out of their own board budgets?

MR. YOUNG: To the extent, on our professional development, we would treat

that as a non-discretionary item for PD and so on. We would look at the

allocation that has been made to the board and if there is an overrun we will

fund 80 per cent of that overrun to the board. Sometimes you see a board may

choose to send three teachers. They may only need to send two to a particular

professional development thing, if they have to look at their budgetary

considerations. As I said, if they do drive it over then they have to fund 20

per cent of the overruns that they have on their non-discretionary side.

MR. PRESS: (Inaudible) non-discretionary side, or they might conceivably

have some difficulty, as you suggested, because they have little control. If

sick leave goes up, certainly it is a problem for them but we have spent a lot

of time over the last twelve months working with the districts to look at

innovative ways by which we can deal with the whole issue of sick leave and so

on, bringing in Wellness workers, maybe running a pilot in one or two districts

and so on to enable them to come to terms with increasing costs due to sick

leave.

On the other hand, with enrollments going down and the number of teachers

having gone down over the last dozen years or so, in fact the total usage of

this area has been going down anyway simply because the numbers have been going

down. Certainly it is an area that we have had some interest in trying to work

with the school districts to try and reduce the amount of non-discretionary

leave.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: One final area in terms of board budgeting - it is a

board operation rather than budgeting, I guess - is the issue around capital;

not so much the major capital projects like new school construction or something

on which there is a fair bit of dialogue, and that is a separate category. In

this year's budget there is $10 million announced for priority construction

and renovation jobs, but this other allocation of the $4 million, which is

capital projects but the smaller capital projects, the timing in some of that -

number one, that is not a large amount of money. I appreciate the challenges you

are going to have to carve up that piece of pie.

MS FOOTE: Actually, it has been carved up.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: What is that?

MS FOOTE: Actually, it has been carved up. It is all committed.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: It was committed before it came out in the budget, was

it?

MS FOOTE: In anticipation of getting the third commitment of the twelve.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I appreciate the challenges you are going to have,

especially my comment earlier about off-loading the buildings to someone else

because they are in such bad shape, but the timing of that, Minister. I

understand boards submit their requests - and I appreciate your situation - the

boards submit their requests in the fall and the Budget comes down some time in

March, so you don't know what you are dealing with until then, but the issue

of: It is allocated now but the boards.... You know, it is probably a good point

you have raised for me to ask the question. You said it is committed. Would that

mean that the boards that are going to get that money now know, today, that they

have it? The projects that you approved that $4 million for, do those boards

know today that they have that money?

MS FOOTE: Some of them would.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay.

MS FOOTE: We are still talking to some of them because they have come in

- we ask boards to prioritize.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Sure.

MS FOOTE: Because we go out, especially for that $4 million, you are

talking primarily roofs and windows. We are still in discussions with some of

them, in terms of just how much they need, but most of the boards would know, I

would say - not most of them, but some of them would know - what they are

getting. We are still in discussion with some others.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Can I localize that question? Can I ask you if Vista

knows what they have yet?

MS FOOTE: Vista? I don't know.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Have they been told?

MS FOOTE: No, they don't know the total amount.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay. They don't know yet, do they?

WITNESS: (Inaudible) envelope.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay. Do you approve the very specific projects, or do

you give the board a chunk of money and say: Do the ones you can with this

money.

MS FOOTE: We would ask them to tell us what their needs are.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay.

MS FOOTE: Then we would work with them to see just how many we could

respond to, bearing in mind that we have eleven boards.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay.

MR. PRESS: Also bearing in mind (inaudible) priorities.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Sure.

MR. PRESS: What you might find is that there may be a more serious

capital issue in one community that may be one priority for one district, that

may be more serious than the number one priority in another district.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: So, with that in mind, there is potential for a school

district or several school districts not to get five cents of that $4 million

because they do not fit within a provincial priority rating system. In theory,

that could happen.

MR. PRESS: Yes.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay.

Would the minister be able to give us some indication of those boards that do

not now know what the envelope might be, what time frame she might put on that

in terms of letting the boards know that? Some know, you suggest, but those that

do not know, do you have some sense of when that might happen?

MS FOOTE: We are anxious because, obviously, of the time of the year. We

are anxious to get moving, so I would say within a month, four or five weeks.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you.

Getting back to the next part of my question dealing with the Centre for

Distance Learning and Innovation, can we talk about that a little bit? Because

that was an initiative you announced last year.

MS FOOTE: You are not interested in that, are you?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I am interested in asking some questions about it.

MS FOOTE: In the CDLI?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I am interested in knowing, in terms of how you are

developing that. You mentioned earlier, just as a starting point, that there

were currently ten courses at present that are being delivered. The centres that

they are being delivered to, do you need high-speed Internet access to be able

to deliver those programs?

MS FOOTE: We are now delivering them - I guess it is synchronous.

MR. PRESS: Some of them.

MS FOOTE: Some of them are.

MR. PRESS: If I may just respond to that, some might require high-speed

connection, and that would be ideal, but where it is not possible we do it

through CD-ROM and so on, so you deliver the service, let the student log on and

do it within their same time frame and so on, but make sure it is linked up with

an E-teacher at Distance so they can communicate on a reasonably regular basis.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: But it won't be an interactive process.

MR. PRESS: No, typically, Internet-based or not, there is not that sense

of immediacy that we would have gotten in the old system.

MS FOOTE: I guess that is an issue for us, and we are having discussions

with the federal government in terms of accessing some money to move forward

with respect to connectivity as well.

MR. GALWAY: There are actually plans to have a synchronous component to

even the E-learning aspect of it. There is a committee being struck of assistant

directors, working with the director of the centre. While most of the E-learning

will be in the asynchronous mode, the feeling is that there needs to be a

portion of it, maybe one period in a cycle, where there is that synchronous

connection with the E-teachers. To clarify, I guess, most of it will be

asynchronous and there will be a portion that will still be real time.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: In that real time, that synchronous mode, will

high-speed Internet be required to be able to do that?

MR. GALWAY: Most of the courses have been developed so they can be

delivered with telephone lines. The goal is to increase the interactivity of the

course content as the high-speed access becomes available to the world

communities, but as it stands right now we are using a combination of CD-ROM,

high-speed and low-speed delivery. Also, I might add, for the coming year we

will still be delivering three courses using the trad